A pretty normal week on the Galician roads – two men were arrested for driving the wrong way down the autopista and another for doing 260kph on the same road, albeit in the correct direction. This is a mere 163 miles per hour. So it’s a good job nothing was coming in the opposite direction. Or, indeed, just standing there.

The Motel Venus on the outskirts of Pontevedra is a pink building with a high wall around its car park. In the local paper today it’s advertising itself as the ideal place to celebrate St Valentine’s Day. My own suspicion is that, if anyone turned up with his wife or regular partner, this would be a first for the place. And he might well need to explain why it was so well equipped for a ‘romantic’ evening.

The local police had an unusual campaign this week, targeting people who break traffic laws. What was novel about it is was they didn’t make the traditional prior announcement, allowing people to, say, put their safety belts on for a few days. Or unglue their mobile phone from their ear. Not everyone is happy with this tricky way of doing things. For some, it’s just one more sign that Spain is going to the dogs.

On British TV last week, a prize was offered to whoever first answered correctly the question In which battle did the ship HMS Victory take part? Hastings, Waterloo or Trafalgar? Since two of these were on land, I think we can be forgiven for suspecting the real purpose of the exercise was not to test the intelligence of the viewers but to generate revenue from premium rate phone calls. Though I guess I may be overestimating the historical knowledge of the British public at large.